Up until last week, the ghosts of the previous tenants were right outside Jess Smith’s door.
Smith, who inherited Steve Kerr’s office last year after she was announced as the Golden State Valkyries’ first president, would walk by them every day.
Wilt Chamberlain, Nate Thurmond, Rick Barry, Run TMC, and the We Believe Dubs, to name a few, were portrayed in a mural of Warriors history right above the courts of the team’s old headquarters in downtown Oakland.
“That’s a lot of pressure to walk into,” Smith said. But now, she can breathe a sigh of relief. The reminders of that franchise, which has relocated across the bay, are gone.
This place now belongs to the Valkyries, who on Wednesday reopened the renovated facility at 1011 Broadway.
Blue, yellow, and white have been traded for black and violet. In the hallway, Oakland artist Allison Hueman painted a 215-foot mural evocative of the Sistine Chapel, with a Nordic/Bay Area twist, since the team mascot is a mythical, flying female warrior.
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All that’s left is for a basketball team to start putting it to good use. Golden State has 12 players on its roster after signing eight (so far) from its expansion draft, three more from Europe, and the reigning Sixth Woman of the Year, Tiffany “Tip” Hayes, in free agency.
As it stands, the Valkyries’ roster is made up mostly of intriguing role players. How the front office squares that with owner Joe Lacob’s goal of winning a WNBA championship within five years remains to be seen.
“Mister Joe’s [goal] is in my mind when I sleep and when I wake up,” said general manager Ohemaa Nyanin.
To achieve it, she’ll need to find at least one or two superstars.
The bad news on that front is that most of the league’s top available stars — Satou Sabally, Kelsey Plum, and Brittney Griner among them — have been signed or traded since the start of free agency last week. Phoenix Mercury legend Diana Taurasi is technically available, but it is unclear if the 42-year-old intends to resume her career.
Golden State could try to pluck a star from the WNBA draft in April — like the Indiana Fever did last year with Caitlin Clark — but reports indicate that the top two prospects, Connecticut’s Paige Bueckers and Notre Dame’s Olivia Miles, could opt to return to college for one more year.
Here, timing has worked against the Valkyries ahead of their inaugural season. Since the WNBA and the players’ union are in the midst of negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement, the majority of players and teams are opting to punt on long-term commitments until 2026, when the league’s 11-year, $2.2 billion media-rights deal kicks in.
“We’re having to balance being strategic and being competitive,” Nyanin said.
“This is expansion,” Lacob said. “We don’t have the advantage of [existing stars] recruiting other players, or any history to lean on yet.
“But we do have this great facility,” he added. “And we have unlimited resources to make this team the best, most valuable team in the world.”
Valkyries head coach Natalie Nakase called the WNBA-specific facility, only the fourth of its kind in the league, a “24/7 sanctuary” that will sell itself to prospective players. “Having a dedicated space of this caliber is crucial for our team’s development,” she said. “Players are already asking me if they can come in to watch film.”
The renovation of the facility, which the Warriors occupied from 1997 to 2019, took approximately five months, Smith said. Among the highlights, the walls of the former weight room were knocked down to open up the space, which now includes a spa, hot and cold pools, and a dedicated player lounge.
Meanwhile, the angular design of the wooden floor planks in the two full-size basketball courts are meant to invoke the letter “V.”
“Since we’re an expansion team, branding is everything,” Smith said. “Everything about this facility’s design has a sense of duality to it. We want to lean into the mythology. This is not just about sports — it’s what it will mean to the community.”